Senator Chuck Grassley encourages his staff to bring him ideas and inspiration.  Years ago, a legislative assistant told him about her positive experience with adoption and her interest in developing child welfare policy initiatives with him.  He participated in a foster care "maze" in the U.S. Capitol with the late Dave Thomas, owner of Wendy's restaurants and champion for adoption.

Senator Grassley quickly understood the tremendous struggles that foster youth endure and the need to shape helpful public policy.  

He worked to advance the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.  Since its enactment, adoptions increased to 54,000 per year, and many states have doubled their adoptions from foster care.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 included funding he championed for grants to train judges, attorneys and legal personnel in child welfare cases, as well as grants to strengthen and improve collaboration between the courts and child welfare agencies. 

In 2006, the Senate Finance Committee held the first hearings on child welfare in more than a decade.  The hearings led to passage of the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006, which Senator Grassley developed as Finance Committee Chairman and shepherded through Congress.  The legislation improved programs aimed at helping troubled families, provided grants for states and community organizations to combat methamphetamine addiction and other substance abuse, and increased case worker visits for children in foster care.

Senator Grassley was a leader in the bipartisan effort to pass the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act of 2008.  This new law represented the most significant and far-reaching improvements to child welfare in more than a decade.  It provided additional federal incentives for states to move children from foster care to adoptive homes.  It included Senator Grassley's legislation to make it easier for foster children to be permanently cared for by their own relatives, including grandparents and aunts and uncles, and to stay in their own home communities.  The law broke new ground by establishing opportunities to help kids who age out of the foster care system at age 18 by giving states the option to extend their care and helping them pursue education or vocational training.

In 2009, Senator Grassley formed the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth with Senator Mary Landrieu.  The caucus provides a voice for foster youth in shaping the policies that affect their quality of life.  The caucus has a special focus on older youth who need continued support as they age out of the system.  Among other activities, it sponsors a speakers' series to bring the best ideas from the field to policymakers in Washington, D.C.  An upcoming series will focus on foster youth who are trafficked within the United States. 

Senator Grassley has focused on many issues that affect foster youth, including educational stability, substance abuse, and the over-prescription of psychotropic drugs. He also has worked on several adoption-related policies, including the adoption tax credit, kinship, and adoption awareness resolutions.

Most recently, Senator Grassley worked to reauthorize grants that support families who struggle with substance abuse and that improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children who are not in their homes or are likely to be removed from their homes because of substance abuse by their parents.  Senator Grassley has long said that foster youth yearn for permanency, and these grants help to keep families together, when possible, so that children are not subjected to the many difficulties that they face in the foster care system.

Senator Grassley says the feelings of isolation among foster youth are especially acute during the holiday season and encourages everyone to continue to work on policies that will help build stable, loving families year-round.

Tell Senator Grassley what you think about this issue.